New Assault Area Overview

[Vyuru]

Several things here.

I've been reading that by killing some of the archaic gears your party gets hit with some kind of nasty status effect, I've heard of at least having your divine magic sealed similar to the restrictions that Salvage gives you. Good news is that the restriction is lifted once you move to a new floor.

So for all those drg/mages who do this, you may want to use /rdm, it is the only sub that I am aware of that has elemental, divine, and buff spells so you can still function as a healer even if you get one of them blocked off, in theory of course.

Also, I was wondering can you charm the mobs that appear in there? Or are those all charm resistant mobs like Puks are? I'd think a bunch of bsts who go in there, charm mobs and have them rip the NMs to pieces would be really effective.

[KoukiRyu]

Anyone have any idea how to activate those lamps...? We spent pretty much all of the rest of our time on that floor...and it was our second floor. We activated them in tons of different order, had each member standing at one lamp, randomly trying, all these different things, and nothing worked. If anyone has gotten a hold of how this works, let meh know please? :D

[Akashimo]

You have to activate them all at the same time

[Gobo]

Theres 3 different types of lamps:

Everyone touch 1 at the same time

Light all at the same time

Light them in the right order

The last one is really annoying, pretty much as to be done by trial and error. Have the group set up an order to go, follow that order and once all are turned on the lamps will light. If one was lit in its proper spot (like someone lit the 3rd lamp 3rd in order) than the that lamp will stay "lit". Keep changing the order around until you get the rest right. Even if you lit one in its proper spot in the order, you still have to relight it until you get them all right.

For kill the specified monster, its almost confirmed that the right monster cons impossible while the rest don't.

[KoukiRyu]

Theres 3 different types of lamps:

Everyone touch 1 at the same time

Light all at the same time

Light them in the right order

The last one is really annoying, pretty much as to be done by trial and error. Have the group set up an order to go, follow that order and once all are turned on the lamps will light. If one was lit in its proper spot (like someone lit the 3rd lamp 3rd in order) than the that lamp will stay "lit". Keep changing the order around until you get the rest right. Even if you lit one in its proper spot in the order, you still have to relight it until you get them all right.

For kill the specified monster, its almost confirmed that the right monster cons impossible while the rest don't.

Ohhh! Thank you so much! :D We had so much trouble with it, and couldn't quite figure it out...it didn't help that some of my party members were idiots. Well I'll try it again, hopefully with friends, and maybe it'll go better, thanks again for your answer. :D

[Caspian]

Probably too soon to know for sure, but, do the NM's drop the items they once did, or is all the really good drops the ??? items from the end of each floor?

[Gobo]

the NMs drop the ??? item that relates to their real drop (so Lizzy drops ??? Footgear from her chest). Get the item appraised for a chance at their real drop, just like you would if you killed the NM outside Nyzul. At least, I think thats the answer to your question.

And no prob KoukiRyu. Took us forever yesterday figuring it out and wondering why some would stay on, but others would fade. When we finally got it we had 2 min left so we just kicked ourselves for tokens.

[silentsteel]

gah, I wish I could get on, then maybe I could join you rei XD

[Caspian]

Had one where we had to light all the lamps at once, except for one lamp. Once all the others are lit at once, then you light the last one to finish the floor.

About lighting them in order. Spent a LONG time on one floor trying to light them in the right order. It seemed they'd randomly all turn on for a second and it would say something along the lines of "Confirming action" or something to that effect. After that everyone had the option to light theirs and had to figure out the order. Never could figure out for sure what that meant and ended up getting stuck on that floor for the rest of the time.

Note: seems pretty necessary for everyone to have oils and powders for areas to get past certain mobs, especially those that aggro magic. Also friend had a bird pop next to him and aggro immediately, no delay whatsoever.

If anyone else has more to add about the lamps in order, I'd love to hear it. Right now I'm going out on a limb and saying that the lamps in order is the gayest thing I've seen so far.

[KoukiRyu]

Had one where we had to light all the lamps at once, except for one lamp. Once all the others are lit at once, then you light the last one to finish the floor.

About lighting them in order. Spent a LONG time on one floor trying to light them in the right order. It seemed they'd randomly all turn on for a second and it would say something along the lines of "Confirming action" or something to that effect. After that everyone had the option to light theirs and had to figure out the order. Never could figure out for sure what that meant and ended up getting stuck on that floor for the rest of the time.

Note: seems pretty necessary for everyone to have oils and powders for areas to get past certain mobs, especially those that aggro magic. Also friend had a bird pop next to him and aggro immediately, no delay whatsoever.

If anyone else has more to add about the lamps in order, I'd love to hear it. Right now I'm going out on a limb and saying that the lamps in order is the gayest thing I've seen so far.

Definite agreement here, I'm really not liking this, at least with pick up groups. Until some concrete solution is posed, or you just know how to order stupid people around really well, I'd suggest going with friends whenever is possible. o_o

[Karinya]

Are there any clues as to which order is the right order? It hardly seems reasonable to expect people to just guess...

[Caspian]

I'm thinking at this point you're basically screwed on getting through 5 floors if you get the lanterns in order one. You really just have to hope for a lantern everyone has to touch, or a kill all enemies or something.

Someone asked earlier if the Archaic ramparts are true sight or sound, the answer is no. Ran right by them with sneak/invis up. I would guess the same holds true for the Archaic gears, though they do link to the ramparts.

[Akashimo]

I'm thinking at this point you're basically screwed on getting through 5 floors if you get the lanterns in order one. You really just have to hope for a lantern everyone has to touch, or a kill all enemies or something.
Someone asked earlier if the Archaic ramparts are true sight or sound, the answer is no. Ran right by them with sneak/invis up. I would guess the same holds true for the Archaic gears, though they do link to the ramparts.

Woot, that could be a critical time saver next time doing the lamp floor with those all around it. Though, gotta wonder if they can be slepted incase they are surrounding a lamp. And what do they aggro to, sight or sound?

[Caspian]

Archaic gears are True something. I'm guessing sound. Had both up, but I dont even know how you'd tell what way it was facing anyway.

There's some lamps where you have to light all but one at once time, then light the last, and sometimes light all but one (it tells you which one) then kill the rampart (don't know if this can change) then light the last one.

As for kill all the enemies one, you can get seriously dicked on this one. If you get a Hellion NM, you better hope to clear the others fairly fast. Its a flesh with a ton of HP so takes a bit. If you get a Dahak, just call it a night. Ours was T, was only hitting for 100 dmg with food and minuet. Only taking at most 1% of health per shot, spams a petrify move. We got it on the 4th floor with over ten minutes left and got this one. Heard of some people get it on the first floor and never finished killing it.
Oh, Archaic gears don't seem to build resistance to sleep, which is nice since you have to keep them slept on the ones where you have to kill everything but them. And you will aggro them at least once, since you have to kill the ramparts and they link. As for the ones where you can't even aggor them? No idea, heard you lose a minute if you aggro one, not sure if it accumulates for every time you aggro one or not.

So far, after 7 runs my thoughts on these:
It can be a lot of fun and can be one gigantic headache. Its so much luck of the draw it can be incredibly annoying. Not only do you have to hope for the right tasks to get, but also the right mobs in the kill enemies one.

And one more thing I thought of, one the kill specified enemy(ies), its the mob(s) that aren't NM's, but check as Impossible to Gauge.
Hope this helps some people and post what else you figure out.
I haven't checked it, but apparently BG's forums also has a good list of what is what and explains a lot of it. (Apparently floor 20 is random pop of Faf, Turtle, or Behe) And for rng's apparently Eastern Shadow is floor 22.

[Karinya]

As for NM strengths, Tom Tit Tat and Leaping Lizzy each survived several Tier III nukes and a couple level 75 melees beating on them for about a minute before going down, so I'd say their strengths are definitely adjusted. When Frostmane isn't particularly stronger than Leaping Lizzy you know something's up.

Haven't seen anyone complete a set of 5 levels yet - it seems to depend a lot on luck as some objectives are far more time consuming than others.

The ramparts have very nasty AOE that goes through shadows - blink tanks work very poorly against them. And because of the cramped areas it's hard for mages to get out of range, too.